The Unknown American Revolution

by Nash, Gary B.

• ISBN13: 9780143037200
• ISBN10: 014303720X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-05-30
• Publisher: Penguin Group USA

Summary

In this audacious recasting of the American Revolution, distinguished historian Gary Nash offers a profound new way of thinking about the struggle to create this country, introducing readers to a coalition of patriots from all classes and races of American society. From millennialist preachers to enslaved Africans, frontier mystics to dockside tars, disgruntled women to aggrieved Indians, the people so vividly portrayed in this book did not all agree or succeed, but during the exhilarating and messy years of this country's birth, they put forth ideas that have become part of our inheritance and ideals toward which we still strive today. Book jacket.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Introduction	p. xiii
Roots of Radicalism	p. 1
Jailbreaks at Newark	p. 2
Christ's Poor	p. 8
Little Carpenter's Dilemma	p. 12
"The Mobbish Turn" in Boston	p. 18
"Cum Multis Aegis" in Philadelphia	p. 25
"Fondness for Freedom"	p. 32
Heralds of Abolition	p. 39
Years of Insurgence, 1761-1766	p. 44
The Crowd Finds Its Own Mind	p. 45
Restive Slaves	p. 59
Stricken Conscience	p. 62
The Indian Great Awakening	p. 66
Insurgent Farmers	p. 72
Building Momentum, 1766-1774	p. 88
"The Rising Spirit of the People"	p. 91
Backcountry Crises	p. 103
"The Natural Rights of Africans"	p. 114
Indian Hating on the Middle Ground	p. 128
Out of the Shadows	p. 133
Radical Religion	p. 146
Reaching the Climax, 1774-1776	p. 150
Abolitionism Under War Clouds	p. 151
"Liberty to Slaves"	p. 157
Logan's Lament	p. 166
Plowmen and Leather Aprons	p. 178
Breaking the Logjam	p. 189
The Genie Unbottled	p. 199
The Dual Revolution, 1776-1778	p. 207
Unalienable Rights for Whom?	p. 210
The Myth of the Minuteman	p. 216
Fighting to Be Free	p. 223
Rioting to Eat	p. 232
Radical Loyalism	p. 238
Choosing Sides	p. 247
Writing on the Clean Slate, 1776-1780	p. 264
First Attempts	p. 266
A Militiaman's Constitution	p. 268
The Frightened Response	p. 277
Vermont and Maryland	p. 280
E Pluribus Unum?	p. 288
Betrayal in Massachusetts	p. 290
Radicalism at Floodtide, 1778-1781	p. 306
Blood in the Streets	p. 307
New Choices for African Americans	p. 320
Defending Virginia	p. 339
Native American Agonies	p. 345
Radical Mutineers	p. 357
Taming the Revolution, 1780-1785	p. 366
"Band of Brotherhood"	p. 369
Peace Without Peace	p. 376
Southern Fissures	p. 387
Northern Struggles for Equity	p. 395
Leaving America	p. 402
Finding Freedom	p. 407
Women of the Republic	p. 417
Epilogue: Sparks from the Altar of '76	p. 423
The Dream Deferred	p. 426
The Last Best Chance	p. 429
The Indispensable Enemy	p. 435
The Veterans' Cheat	p. 441
Small-Producer Persistence	p. 443
Passing the Torch	p. 450
Acknowledgments	p. 457
Notes	p. 459
Index	p. 495
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